


Dusk

by fabula_prima



Series: Kairos [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Cullen Rutherford Fluff, Established Relationship, F/M, Flash Fic, One Shot, Short & Sweet, Short One Shot, Soft Cullen Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-22
Updated: 2017-08-22
Packaged: 2018-12-18 19:46:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11881533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fabula_prima/pseuds/fabula_prima
Summary: He smells a bit like spearmint just after he bathes.





	Dusk

**Author's Note:**

> A companion piece to my other flash fic "Dawn." This poetic prose business is becoming a thing...

He smells a bit like spearmint just after he bathes. Spearmint and warm linen, even though he prefers his water on the cooler side. He’s a furnace, you often tell him, so that he diffuses and amplifies the scent of whatever contacts him. He rubs a towel through his hair feverishly, as if he were trying to scrub it clean off, and so it’s really no shock that he always smells a bit like warm linen just after he bathes; it weaves through and wraps around the golden threads of his hair. The towel invariably finds a place around his neck, hanging lopsided at the base of a tousled mane. You’re always astonished by the length of his hair when it’s damp and disorderly. He remarks that you say that every time, wonders that you remain surprised after all these nights, weeks, moons, months.

You’ve been reading, cross-legged on the bed, so that when he collapses his weight onto the mattress and sends the lines of script bouncing in front of your eyes, you huff in mock irritation. He usually apologizes despite knowing that you’re joking, the excruciatingly gallant dear. But this evening he remains silent until your glance wanders over. There’s a smirk playing at his scar, and mischief broods in him so rarely that your synapses fire wildly, you can feel them overacting, overreacting, tripping over themselves to find the source of his strange delight. You ask him _what, what, what is it, why are looking at me like that_ , and you know your own smirk snuck in somewhere between the first and second _whats_ because it doesn’t matter how many times he’s made you scream his name in primitive, unabashed, uncomplicated ecstasy—when his honey liquor eyes dote upon you, you go as coy as a maiden.

He asks what he looks like when he reads and you say _determined_. Like he’s solving a riddle or filing archives. He gives you a grimace and you ask why he’s curious and he says, with a petulant lilt, that you look _enraptured_ , _emboldened_ , _utterly stirred_ and he looks **determined**. You offer him a frown in sympathy and explain that it’s just all of the wisdom in his eyes, he can’t help looking serious. He rolls them then, perhaps to slough off some of their alleged gravity, and pulls you down to him for a sobering kiss. You close your book on your finger, tucked into the spine to hold your place and lose yourself for _one, two, three, and break_ to clarify, to decide now whether to let the fervor of arousal unfurl. He’s fresh from a bath, you reason with him, even as you go slick and fevered and vibrate. This is a sacrifice of love, you decide. It happens in big ways, sometimes, like a mother foregoing dinner to feed her son or a husband leaving his job so his wife can move back near her family. It happens in small ways, too, like letting him remain freshly washed even though you suddenly crave the smell of spearmint and linen and sweat and yourself amplified and diffused. _If he has to bathe again_ , he tells you, _he has to bathe again_. Somewhere outside a cricket purrs and another and another and the sky is rust and lust and his mouth is on your neck and his hair is nearly dry between your fingers.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments are always appreciated :)


End file.
